Burma

Why
the Monks
Rebelled
Fierce poverty. A government that is crushing the people. And a regime that has sought for forty years to eliminate God, “because the only supreme being is man.” A Pime missionary with long-term experience in the country explains what lies at the heart of the tragedy that is tearing the country apart

by Piero Gheddo

For the first time in almost twenty years, the international media are talking about Burma (or Myanmar), a country that is nearly always overlooked. Since 1962, it has been oppressed by a military-socialist (or rather Communist) dictatorship that crushes the people but represents no direct threat to the West. In mid-August, with its small economy reeling from the sudden hikes in gasoline and diesel prices, the people took to the streets, and in September the Buddhist monks joined them, marching through the cities in their saffron-colored robes. For a few days, the military backed off, then unleashed a repression that rapidly eliminated the embarrassing spectacle being transmitted by television stations around the world.

“Dying like flies”
There had been no popular nationwide rebellion in Burma since 1988. That one grew out of protests by students over the frequent closure of high schools and universities. The military council had to allow the opposition some freedom because of strong international pressure. In 1990, “free” elections were held, which were won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s League for Democracy Party, while the Burmese Socialist Party supported by the military won 10% of the vote. A few years later, everything was back to square one: Suu Kyi never governed and her elected deputies were arrested or fled abroad.
Thousands of people were killed and many of those arrested in the protests ended up in forced labor camps. Visiting Burma in 1993, I myself saw files of men tied two by two, with shackles on their feet, guarded by soldiers with guns at the ready, building the road to the frontier with Thailand (Thachileik border crossing). An appalling spectacle, and all the more so because those who were with me said, “They’re dying like flies. They live in straw sheds, with little food, without any shelter from the heat and cold of the mountains and without medical care. The great majority have been brought from the city; they’re not used to heavy labor and living in the forest.” It’s feared that the recent rebellion with the monks in the front line will finish the same way, despite international pressure, which is fruitless for the simple reason that since 1990 Burma has had a powerful backer in Communist China, now in the limelight as a great power and eager to gain an outlet on the Indian Ocean. An eyewitness a year ago wrote to me: “The soldiers are forcing the peasants to grow opium and they’re making Burma the world’s largest exporter… Today, China supplies the military with weapons in return for the valuable timber, minerals, gas, and oil. They’re building roads and flooding us with their products.”

The Chinese invasion
The Chinese are already in Burma, “colonizing” some autonomous tribal regions along the border. I visited one of them in 2002, the city of Mong Lar invaded by the Chinese. Everywhere there were Chinese signs, Chinese taxis, Chinese currency, Chinese restaurants, and Chinese workers modernizing the city with buildings never seen before in those parts, channeling water, setting up electricity and plumbing. It is easy to understand why China and Russia opposed UN sanctions. Besides the economic and strategic interest of these two powers, there’s the fact, which no one mentions, that the coup giving the military absolute power on March 2, 1962, was not carried out by “soldiers” but “socialist” soldiers, Communists to all effects, inspired by the developmental models of Stalin’s Russia and Maoist China. They showed it immediately that same year by launching the Lanzin, “the Burmese way to socialism,” a “socialism inspired by Buddhism,” though there was absolutely nothing Buddhist about it. In the Lanzin manifesto, among the basic ideas for a new society, we read: “In the place of god [lower case] we have to put man, who is supreme… The philosophy of our party is a purely worldly and human doctrine. It is not a religion… The history of humanity is not only the history of nations and wars but also of class struggle. Socialism seeks to put an end to this exploitation of man by man. The ideal of socialism is a prosperous society, rich, founded on justice. There is no place for charity. We will do everything, taking the appropriate steps to eliminate acts and works of false charity and social assistance. The state will take care of everyone. Feeding and educating the children of the workers will be the exclusive responsibility of the state when economic resources are sufficient. The activities of businesses founded on the law of private property is against nature and merely leads to social antagonisms. Ownership of the means of production must be social… An act can be considered right, moral, only when it serves the interests of the workers. Working all one’s life for the well-being of his fellow-citizens and that of humanity in a fraternal spirit is the ‘Plan of the Beatitudes’ for the Society of the Burmese Union.”
Acting on these principles, one of the first decrees of the government was the abolition of Buddhism as the established religion (which it had been ever since independence in 1948). Then the government nationalized banks, industry, small and medium-sized businesses, shops and land, newspapers and radio stations, hotels, restaurants, and so forth. Private property disappeared and everything was taken over by the state and run in the public interest. Finally, on March 31, 1964, the government seized all private schools and health services, mostly runs by Catholics and Protestants (mainly Baptists and Anglicans), together with their land, vehicles, and everything else except their debts. In 1966, the regime expelled all missionaries who entered Burma after 1964, including thirty PIME missionaries, while another thirty who had arrived earlier stayed on. Then the government gradually realized its policy was angering the people and allowed the religions to survive to the point where the Buddhists were reconciled and supported the junta. This at least brought stability to a country which had known civil war in the 14 years of democratic government (1948-1962). The turning point came in 1988, since when the Buddhists have been in opposition.
We have to understand why Buddhism, which preaches separation from all worldly things, renunciation, and passive acceptance to ensure a happier rebirth is now actively opposing the government in Burma. Very briefly, we can say that the revival of Buddhism in the modern world (above all “low path Buddhism” or Hinayana, as practiced in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos) began in the late nineteenth century with the growth of nationalism in these countries, all of which had been colonized, with the exception of Thailand. Their national identities included their language, history, and naturally their Buddhist religion and culture, which had deep roots among those peoples. This movement led the monks and the faithful to understand that the ancient doctrines and historical traditions of their religion would have difficulty surviving in the modern world, which sets great store by education, politics, popular organizations, and welfare. Asian forms of nationalism were all inspired by popular religions: think of Pakistan or Sri Lanka today, with the civil war between the Buddhist Sinhalese majority and the Hindu Tamil minority.

What Buddha said
The revival of Buddhism was many sided: monastery schools were modernized, Buddhist study centers and universities were founded together with lay associations and many welfare societies for the people (in imitation of the Christian missions), which had not existed before. I visited the Buddhist university of Kandy, in Sri Lanka, and got some idea of the complexity of Buddhism, starting from the difficulty of establishing the texts by Buddha. The bishop of Kandy (who studied at the university) told me that today the texts of the tradition in various languages (Sanskrit and Pali above all) which are attributed to Buddha, the Sacred Writings of Buddhism, are 11 times longer than the whole Bible (which has 72 canonical books). Critical studies, begun by British and German scholars little more than a century ago, have made very little progress in this great sea of texts (also written in Sinhalese, Burmese, Thai, Cambodian, Vietnamese, etc.). In strictly scholarly terms, it is still not possible to tell exactly what Buddha said. This is also true, to a lesser extent, of Mohammed and the Koran!

The soul of the people
All this has not prevented popular Burmese Buddhism from surviving and even enjoying a second youth and being increasingly the soul of the people. It is also the only opposition, given the practical elimination of any other kind. The massive protests by the Buddhist monks against the government last September is a clear sign that the situation has become unbearable.
No more need be said. If the peaceful popular rebellion headed by the monks fails, an even darker future awaits Myanmar: the Chinese might intervene and pull the strings of the “local” government so that it becomes a province of China. What are other countries doing about all this? The only effective threat of a spontaneous boycott in the West would be to refuse to take part in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but there seem to be no serious proposals and discussions, not even in countries where democrats, pacifists, and groups ready to mobilize for human rights are legion. Why?